Utopia in Bollywood: 'Hum Aapke Hain Koun...!' Author(S): Rustom Bharucha Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol
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Utopia in Bollywood: 'Hum Aapke Hain Koun...!' Author(s): Rustom Bharucha Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 30, No. 15 (Apr. 15, 1995), pp. 801-804 Published by: Economic and Political Weekly Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4402626 . Accessed: 14/01/2015 09:57 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Economic and Political Weekly is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Economic and Political Weekly. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 140.233.70.45 on Wed, 14 Jan 2015 09:57:20 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions PERSPECTIVES appears to transcend. If this were so. Utopia in Bollywood entertainment could be reduced to an essentialised, a historical set of categories, 'Hum Aapke Ham Koun...!' conventions and formulae that could be perpetuatedthrough skill alone. But this is Rustom Bharucha not the case, since the worldof entertainment had different significances at different It is sad that we should be celebrating the centuryof cinema in India points in time. There are different kinds of with aI superhit so vacuious as 'Hum Aapke Hain Koun... ", a film devoid entertainment,different 'treatments'of the of any illusion worthyof thlecondition of the millions of people who are same rhetoric,different ways of envisioning utopia.These differneces. I would argue,are at once the primarnpatro7ns and victins of its vision. 77Tisis a film that not arbitrary,but intricately dependent on is obviously in lune withl the 'liberalisation'of our times, while being a range of strategies, guesses, and gambles, thoroughllygrounded in the signisof a homogenised, upper class, upper by which directors like Sooraj Barjatya caste Hindu constituency. appearto'give people whattheywant' while vetting the agenda for their desires and dreams. AT a time when the master narratives of entertainmentthat his narrativeannihilates In one of the most illuminatingreflections Hindi cinema are facing an inner collapse, whatever one has come to internalise and on 'Entertainmentand U topia',Richard Dyer or repeatingthemselves ad nausecmn,a new appreciateas 'variety' in entertainment.In has problematised this paradoxical terrain superhitseems to have brokenall box-offices the context of Hindi film blockbusters, this by which the world of entertainment recordsin thehistoiy of Bollywood. Defying would include melodrama, rousing responds to 'needs' that are 'real', while all norms of 'succes.s', it has attracted climaxes, shifts in perspective, histrionic "defining and delimiting what constitutes audiences throughoutthe country, cutting revelations,showdowns, suspense, subplots, the legitimate needs of people in society" acrossdifferences in class, caste,community, and a range of songs - not just 'happy' [Dyer 1993:272-831. Soon theone handthe gender,age, religion, andpolitical affiliation. party numbers which dominate Ram- avatarsof entertainmentcan posit 'utopian Whatmorecould one askfor in these divisive Laxman' s monochromatic, predictably solutions'('abundance'. 'energy', 'intensity', times?The perfect unifier, the entertainment rhythmic score. What makes Baratya's 'transparency',and 'community')in response foreveryIndian: 'Hum Aapke Hain Koun... ! ' intervention in popular cinema significant to the very real tensions of everyday life What is the secret of Sooraj Barjatya's is the ruthlessnesswith which he reducesthe ('scarcity'. 'exhaustion', 'dreariness', phenomenalsuccess? Does his film introduce levels in the narrative, providing us with 'manipulation'and 'regimentation'),but in a long-awaited superstar?Is it politically almost no breathingspace, no time to switch the process, these manufacturersof a 'better provocativein playingwith the immediacies off, no diversion of interest.Claustrophobic life' can exclude many vital needs for the of the realpolitik - 'terrorists' in Kashmir in effect. the projection of happiness in the transformationof society, for example. the andbomb blasts in Bombay'?Does it feature film is 'jabardasti'.forced on us, whether need to respect women outside patriarchal a bandit queen? Has it advertised a new we like itor not, a manifestationof aggressive norms,ortheneed foroppressed communities titillatingdance numberonthe lines of 'choli hospitality ratherthan generosity of spirit. to develop alliances across differences ke peeche kya hai'? Does it explore some It is the purpose of this essay to question without the 'enlightened' patronageof the new-wave cinematography'?The answer to the constructionof happiness in Barjatya's ruling class. The only 'needs' addressedin all these questions is an incredulous 'no'. film, which almost assumes a utopic the world-of entertainmentare those which 'Hum Aapke Hai Koun' (HAHK) must be dimension. Keeping in mind that"arealised capitalism acknowledges and promises to one of the most banalsuperhits in the history utopiacanbeanothername forterror" (Nandy meet, so that in the final analysis, of Indiancitiema. Its audacity-liesin the fact 1987:1], I am alerted to the specific "entertainment provides alternatives to that it totally dispenses with a plot and all difficulties in analysing 'utopia' within the capitalism which will be provided by the 'masala'associated with sex andviolence. frameworkof whatwould seem like a totally capitalism." It is an emphatically clean film, a family innocuous, harmless entertainment.'Why Dyer attempts to counter this 'one- entertainmentparexcellence.celebrating one takeit so seriously?' is aquestionthat almost dimensional situation' by emphas-isingthe supremelyhuman evenlt - 'shaadi', with all any analys-isof HAHK would seem to be "contradictory nature of entertainment the conventions, rituals, and merriment up against from the very starn.It is almost forms", which are to be found in tlih surroundingit. With the exceptionI of one as if the film is immuneto being readagainist dis junction between narrativeand musical breakin the narrative,resulting from a death the grainof theexpectations, stock reactions, numbers, representational and noIn- in the family, which ironically contributes publicity and hype surroundingit. Indeed, representational' signs (colour, texture. to the insistently celebratory drive of the I am only too aware that my emphasis on movement,rhythm). T'omy mind, what Dyer film - we shallexamine its implicationslater certain details in the film can easily be as.sumesas 'contradictory',which he never in the essay - HAHK could be described dismissed on grounds of overstatement or defines, is more often than not a form of accurately (and not just with the hype of nit-picking. Nonetheless, at the risk of elaboration or substitution by whichi a advertising) as a non-stop roller-coasterof appearing elitist in countering cultural dominant set of signs in a particular laughter.food, songs andgames, functioning populism, or more specifically. a populism representationgets reiteratedin seemingly within the perfunctory framework of that does not question its own premises, I differentways. Thie'contradictionls'. if any, romance. would claim thatwhileentertainmentcanbe are cosmeticised. What appears to be a I say 'perfunctory' because romance is. enjoyed as entertainment.this does notmean subversionis actuallya meanosof reaffirming almost the pretext for sustaining the that its apparent 'autonomy' and aura of the underlying norms of a narrative. If dominance of fun in the film.' So fervent 'innocence' are entirely free from the Hollywood musicals (whiclh are the focus is Baljatya's commitmenttoproviding 'pure' exigencies of history and captial that it of Dyer's investigation)orcommercial Hindu ctonomicand Political Weekly April 15, 1995 801 This content downloaded from 140.233.70.45 on Wed, 14 Jan 2015 09:57:20 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions films could contradictthe premises of their decisive end. almost flaunting its success is given the illusion that these commodities productionthrough oppositional signs, which like a signature.2One technical innovation are eminently available, suclh is their couldradically interrogate the content of the thathas contributedviscerally to the projec- abundance. overall construction.then we could begin to tionof B ar atya's successis theunprecedented speakof theirrepresentations of 'utopia' in use in cinemahalls of sparklinglights rotating WEALTH AND FAMILY a more liberatory context. Unfortunately, around the screen during the hit songs and Wealth is a 'given' in a pre-ordained whatexists in the form of 'utopia' is far less the 'happyend'. These liglhts,reminiscent of con(dition which exists without a hint of reflexive, and indeed, as I hope to elaborate the decorative borders surrounding film struggle, despite fleeting references to the in my discussion of HAHK, almost hoardings. further intensify the two- lhumblebeginnings of the'boys' surrogate frighteningly hermetic in construction. dimensional frame of Barjatya'sspectacle. father, Kakaji (Alok Nath) and Anupam enhacingthe materiality of its images, which Kher's relatively modest profession as a FEmSHISEDREPRESENTATION almost hit us in